Elmira Donuts & Deli

Bakery: Elmira Donuts & Deli
Address: 22 Church St W, Elmira ON
Website: n/a
Style: Canadian
Price: $-$$

Finally, the Cake Tour is picking up speed again! Elmira Donuts and Deli is, essentially, the bakery in town, though it's more of a diner serving breakfast and lunch (eggs, sandwiches) and an old-school coffee and doughnut place than a real bakery. However, in addition to the doughnuts in the name, they also have pies, which is, if I remember correctly, more or less the extent of their baked goods. Nonetheless, everything is very home-style: simple, but already looking like it'll taste good. ;)

 The doughnuts were no exception to this; they sell all the classic flavours including, in the picture, apple fritters, dutchies, cherry (forgot the full name), and jelly-filled, blueberry in this case. Sold soft and fresh, these were nicely glazed and well-fried, though the apple fritters were the best done of the bunch and certainly my personal favourite: a hint of spice, pieces of apple. Yummy. With its fluffy dough filled with plump raisins, the dutchie came in at a close second. The only cake doughnut of the bunch, the cherry doughnut, was also fairly tasty, especially considering I'm not the biggest fan of cake doughnuts. Good outside crunch, not too dense on the outside.

The verdict: a classic doughnut stop done right. Now, to try their pies, which look equally delicious!

Rating: ***

Galata Cafe

Bakery: Galata Turkish Cafe
Address: 5122 Dundas St W, Etobicoke ON
Website: http://anatoliafinefoods.com/
Style: Turkish
Price: $$

This Turkish cafe a few doors down from Anatolia restaurant somewhat-recently changed its name but still redirects to Anatolia; is it still a more laid-back offshoot of the restaurant and they simply tried to avoid the confusion of having two Anatolias on the same plaza? Or are they independent? Either way, this is one of the very few places for Turkish food in the GTA. There are, of course, a couple spots specializing in pide (a pizza-like savoury pie), but nothing really delving into the sweet realm.

 That being said, Galata/Anatolia advertises Turkish coffee and pastries, but these pastries are mostly savoury, stuffed with feta cheese, spinach or meat. Of the sweets, there are but few. These include three types of baklava, a honey-soaked cookie and a Bundt-style walnut cake. All are more or less the same price. 

 The walnut cake ($2.25) was a big slice of slightly dense, sandy coffee cake with chunks of walnut mixed into the dough. The size of the nuts made them restricted to only one area, but it was homemade in taste. I personally prefer the moister coffee cafe style, but this was a nice treat.

Secondly, there was the cookie ($2.00). Just like baklava, it was soaked in a honey syrup and it drank it all purchases. Not soggy, but still nicely moist, this was the highlight, if, that is, you don't count the hospitality. There's a reason why it's one of the first things mentioned on their website: genuine, warm hospitality that you seldom meet at any business and completely changes your view of customer service.

Rating: ***

Black Walnut Bakery Cafe

Bakery: Black Walnut Bakery Cafe
Address: 134 Wortley Rd, London ON
Website: http://www.blackwalnutbakerycafe.com/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$

The last in my series of London bakeries  (at least for now) and the other bakery in Wortley Village, Black Walnut markets itself as a European-style cafe, and while they don't really have baked goods of the European kind, they have a nice selection of classic Canadian goodies such as pies, muffins, butter tarts and a few more upscale treats like croissants and was that a cruffin? Items are labelled and priced, and for more home style goods, they're a little up there in terms of price.

 Anyways, I tried two sweets: the butter tart and the carrot cake. The butter tart was pretty big when it comes to butter tarts. The shell was thick, but not too thick, and the filling was rich and had the texture and taste of thick, chewy caramel. A bit surprising but really good.

The carrot cake was nicely spiced, good texture with just the right amount of thick, cream cheese icing on top. Not necessarily on the top ten list, but a nice one.

Black Walnut, in the end, turned out being my personal favourite from this "trip" and probably my preferred bakery in town.

Rating: ***

Scotian Isle Bakery

Bakery: Scotian Isle Bakery 
Address: 972 Hamilton Rd #13, London ON 
Website: http://scotianisle.ca/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

It's pretty easy to stumble upon "ethnic" bakeries serving baked goods from other countries, especially when it comes to larger cities, but unfortunately, it doesn't happen often that I come across a bakery specializing in baking from another... province(!). For this reason, I was pretty excited to give Scotian Isle a try.

Scotian Isle is, as the name somewhat indicates (not to mention the Cape Breton tartan on their website), a Nova Scotian bakery. That being said, there isn't that much difference besides the omnipresence of oatcakes and perhaps the raisin pie. Besides that, expect some homestyle, traditional Canadian bakery fare like butter tarts, pies, and cookies.

From this array, two cake slices were chosen: the satin chocolate cake and some sort of coconut macaroon cake. The chocolate cake was rich, velvety and dark with a similarly dark chocolate ganache topping. Certainly the more decadent of the two, this was perhaps more like a brownie in texture and look than a typical chocolate cake.

The coconut macaroon cake was probably more interesting and my personal favourite. Chewy, shredded coconut with a hint of caramel and chocolate -- tasty!

Rating: ***

Village Harvest [RIP]

Bakery: Village Harvest Bakery
Address: 145 Wortley Rd, London ON 
Website: http://www.villageharvestbakery.com/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

Expanding the London tab with three more bakeries! Village Harvest is a simple bakery located in the small, pretty quaint commercial area along Wortley Rd. One of two bakeries, in fact. The selection is fairly home-style, reminiscent of small-town or well-established bakeries anywhere, with a focus on cookies, squares, and pies. There isn't too much of anything available, but the classics were there.

Among which was the date square... perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a date slab? This looked like an entire quarter of the pan, with corner intact. Without a doubt, this was a generous portion! Biting into this, my first observation was that it was pretty doughy, with a dense, flavourful thick bottom and similarly sized crumble topping. In between, a chewy, not-too sweet date filling. I personally thought that the top needed a little more variation, maybe a little less dough on the bottom would have also helped? My favourite date squares are the ones that have almost a granola topping, with chunky oats. This one, though pretty good, needed a little more texture.

Rating: **1/2

Matcha

Bakery: Matcha Tea & Dessert
Address: 4076 Spadina Avenue, Toronto ON
Website: http://matchateadessert.ca/
Style: Japanese, Taiwanese
Price: $$$ 

At long last I have some cake tours to do! After a few weeks' long dry spell offering me no new bakeries to try, I landed exactly five new spots in one day -- imagine that! Oh, it's so wonderful to be able to update my little site and make my way to that hopefully-not-too elusive 150 Canadian bakeries!

Anyways, is it just me or did a whole bunch of new businesses just suddenly pop up on Spadina? I mean, it couldn't have happened all at once, but the last time I was there, it gave me the impression of it having come overnight. Where did they all come from? Most cater to the new generation of Chinese; they're chicer, more appealing than what gritty Chinatown is known for and offer more unique food options. Matcha is one such business (they share the space with a noodle bar). The name is, though not too creative, self-explanatory, though the mishmash of Japanese and Taiwanese tea comes as more of a surprise: matcha-based tea drinks along with Japanese-style desserts like cream puffs, matcha red bean Swiss rolls, molten matcha cakes, etc. A bit of standard fare and a few items that you won't find anywhere else.

 One item is the matcha cream puff ($3.99). At over $4 with tax, it has a pretty steep price tag, especially considering Japanese matcha chain Tsujiri a few blocks away sells by far the best matcha cream puffs imaginable at a fraction of the cost. In some ways, I went into this one a bit skeptical. More or less fist-sized, this has a crumble texture on top with a dusting of green tea powder. Inside, it's generously filled with intense green cream. And that cream is pretty good. The one thing they have over Tsujiri is that, whereas the latter features a mix of plain and matcha whipped cream, Matcha has pure matcha cream and that's a delicious, beautiful thing. Super flavourful, excellent texture for both the puff dough and dense filling, the only minus was that I found was that the matcha was kind of bitter and didn't have the smooth and sweet flavour I've tried elsewhere.

It's a bit of a splurge, but Matcha is tasty and a nice, welcome addition to the "new Chinatown".

Rating: ***